Users of cloud-based media may wish to share protected content with each other. Such sharing, however, may pose a digital rights problem because some users with whom protected content is desired to be shared may not have the digital rights to consume the shared content. The digital rights problem that arises due to media sharing of protected content is applicable to a wide range of media content, including video, music, audio, games, applications, images, and documents.
For example, a sharing user may have rights to access a video from a particular media provider or source and may wish to share that video with another user, hereinafter referred to as a receiving user. The receiving user, however, may not have rights to access the video from the media provider of the sharing user, but may instead have rights to access the video from a different media provider. Despite having rights to access the shared video, the receiving user, nevertheless, may be unable to perceive the shared video because the sharing transaction limits access to the shared video to the media provider of the sharing user.